Natter

Random crap I ramble on about.

Launch Day!

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If you haven’t seen this elsewhere on social media, today is release day for THE WORLD WE MAKE! Available at all retailers and in audiobook (narrated by Robin Miles again)! Robin Miles narrates the audiobook again! I haven’t even listened to this one yet myself, but I’m looking forward to it. There are a number of reviews out there of TWWM, but beware! Every single review I’ve seen contains major spoilers. I did some interviews! Here’s one for NPR’s 1A, and another with Ezra Klein. Rolling Stone is coming soon. I’m (squee) doing an event (squee) with LeVar Burton, via […]

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Book Renovation

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It’s been a while since I regularly used this blog! Not planning to resume, too busy, but because WordPress has implemented some new features, I decided to write this just to help myself get used to it. Anyway, right now, I’m working on the revision of Book 2 of the Great Cities. A friend asked me how to do revisions, so I figured I might as well lay out my process here. Note that this is my process; as with all other writing advice, you should look at many methods and then choose or customize something that works best for

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Statement on Isabel Fall comments

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As some of you know, a new article has come out regarding that whole terrible mess with Isabel Fall from last year. It’s a good article — the reporter actually speaks to Ms. Fall, and it’s extra horrifying to see just how badly the controversy has impacted her health and career hopes. I’m glad she’s out of crisis, at least, but it sounds like she had a rough road getting there. The reporter also reached out to me while researching this article, because there’s been a lot of internet chatter about my involvement. I shared what I could with her

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Fuck off, 2020

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Been a while, blog readers! Apologies. I purposefully went on blog hiatus a while back because doing both this and Twitter (and at the time Tumblr and Facebook) were just too much. I’ve since dropped Tumblr and FB (for all but family purposes, and occasional comments on other folks’ FBs), and I’ve cut my Twitter usage to roughly about an hour a day. But I still like to talk and think out loud, so here’s where I’ll do more of it in the coming year. Speaking of the coming year. As the hell year that was 2020 grinds closed with

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Turn and Face the Strange

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So, internets. Big changes in Noraland. For the few of you who don’t follow me on Twitter and FB, I Did A Thing. Specifically, last Friday I started a Patreon campaign with the specific goal of breaking free of the 9 to 5 life. I launched it officially at 5:35 pm on Friday afternoon, thinking nobody would much care since Friday News Dump, and thinking that would give me time to fix bugs and work out any kinks in the campaign over the weekend. Instead, to my absolute shock, I hit my baseline goal within 24 hours, and my stretch

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Monday Crankiness

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I am cranky this morning. Which is probably why I’m more irked than usual about a couple of reviews I saw over the weekend which included lines like (paraphrasing) “I bet this author thinks…” and “This is obviously Jemisin’s kink…” and so on. Okay. The author is dead, right, yes, I have to take responsibility for my own part in dancing along the edges of readers’ expectations, and sometimes I screw up. Sometimes, when I try to play with a common trope, I don’t do as good a job as I think of subverting it. That said, how a reader

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Itchy fingers

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I took a break from writing this month, in part because I’m dealing with a lot of stress from some family issues, in part to recover from the breakneck pace I poured into the end of The Obelisk Gate and launching The Fifth Season, and in part to cleanse my mental “editing palate” for when the edit notes come back on TOG and I need to start revising. I’m working on another project right now — a mental palate-cleanser, just as I needed to write “The Awakened Kingdom” after finishing The Fifth Season — but I’m still at the brainstorming

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The Stillness, in all its glory

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So, I still don’t like the idea of maps in fantasy novels in general. But I needed one as I wrote The Fifth Season, so after I scrawled something hideous in a Microsoft Word file and sent that to Orbit, and the collective screams of horror died down, they worked with artist Tim Paul to create something much better (click to embiggen): Yeah, OK, I could get to like maps a little now. Maybe. Seriously, Tim did an awesome job, especially considering he got a lot of vague guidance from me like, “I can’t remember if those pokey things are

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Stuff I wrote (and read) in 2014

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Since people keep asking, here’s the very short list of stuff I published in 2014. I’ll have you know I’m postponing a perfectly good snow day nap to write this up!! “Walking Awake”, Lightspeed, June 2014, 6009 words. “Stone Hunger”, Clarkesworld Issue 94, July 2014, 7888 words. “The Awakened Kingdom”, Orbit Books, December 2014, 41,000 words. I did have one more thing published in 2014, but please note that this was a reprint, originally published back in 2012 in the anthology After. No novels — yes, I know some websites kept insisting that The Fifth Season was out in 2014,

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What I’ve been up to lately

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So, it’s been awhile, blogosphere; my apologies. I would’ve updated sooner, but I had some technical difficulties (now fixed thanks to a move to a new web host) and a series of cascading deadlines that was… well, not fun. But for the first time in awhile, I’ve got room to breathe! So here’s what you missed, if you don’t follow me on Twitter or FB. “The Awakened Kingdom” and Inheritance Trilogy omnibus are on the way! You can preorder the ebook version now. Just sent off the page proofs today! And here’s the cover, if you missed it: Clarion! I

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